


Winter Sojourn

by MrsWythe89



Category: Sorcerer Royal Series - Zen Cho
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsWythe89/pseuds/MrsWythe89
Summary: Mrs Stapleton could not make her mind up whether to be pleased or distressed about Henrietta's going away to Fairy. For there was no doubt it was an honour:"The first Englishmagicienneto have been invited to the Fairy Court! The instructress to the True Queens of Fairyland! It sounds very fine, I declare."And yet … "That it should have come at Christmas," said Mrs Stapleton, wringing her hands. "We have never spent a Christmas without you!"After the events of the book, Henrietta pays a long-awaited visit to Muna in Fairy.
Relationships: Henrietta Stapleton/Muna
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Winter Sojourn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scintilla10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla10/gifts).



Mrs Stapleton could not make her mind up whether to be pleased or distressed about Henrietta's going away to Fairy. For there was no doubt it was an honour:

"The first English _magicienne_ to have been invited to the Fairy Court! The instructress to the True Queens of Fairyland! It sounds very fine, I declare."

And yet … "That it should have come at Christmas," said Mrs Stapleton, wringing her hands. "We have never spent a Christmas without you!"

"But you shall not spend a Christmas without me, Mamma," said Henrietta patiently, as she had said a dozen times before. "I shall not be away for more than a se'nnight. Mr Threlfall has given his solemn word he will have me back on Christmas Eve. We shall all be together at Christmas, the same as ever, for you know how anxious Mr Damerell is that he should not divide me from you."

Mr and Mrs Stapleton had been perplexed when Henrietta had first announced she meant to wed Paget Damerell, for everyone had thought Damerell a confirmed bachelor. But time and use -- as well as the generosity with which Damerell had settled Mr Stapleton's debts -- had reconciled them to the connection. Now no one was fonder of Damerell than Mrs Stapleton.

"Such a modest, retiring gentleman," she was wont to say, to the astonishment of Damerell's friends. "He will never accept an invitation to dinner, he is so fond of his own home, but he insists Henrietta dines with us, for he knows what pleasure we take in her society. There are not many husbands who are so liberal! Indeed, I see more of Henny than I did before she was married."

Mrs Stapleton said now, "It will not be the same; how could you say so? You shall be away the week before Christmas, with all the arrangements still to be made. I am sure I do not know how I shall manage without you." 

"Why, my sisters will help you, Mamma. You need not doubt their capacities. I daresay you will find them vastly better managers than I, once you have tried them."

But Mrs Stapleton was not to be persuaded. "I do not doubt the girls will do their best, but they will not take it as a slight if I say there is nothing like an eldest daughter for being the support a mother needs. At this time of year, with such a vast deal to be done … It would have been far better had you gone in the summer. You said it was proposed you should go then. Why did not you go in the summer?"

"I could not go in the summer," said Henrietta. "I was needed at the Academy."

"Because Mrs Prunella Wythe died, Mamma," her youngest sister Charlotte piped up. "You forget that Mrs Wythe died in the summer."

"So she did," said Mrs Stapleton. "But it has not done her any harm. When I saw her at Mrs Villiers' ball she was dancing quite as though she had never been dead at all."

"Yes, but Henny was not to know she would recover," said Henrietta's second sister Louisa. "Mrs Wythe looked ever so corpse-like when she was laid out, do not you remember, Mamma?"

Mrs Stapleton declined to remember this. "Everyone knows sorcerers are nearly impossible to kill. If you ask me, there was altogether too much fuss made of the matter. It is not as though she were dead for so very long."

For Henrietta, it had felt like an age, as her sisters knew. They all saw the shadow of that painful summer cross her face.

"Mamma, you are being most unfeeling," said Amelia, who was next eldest after Henrietta. "Mrs Wythe is Henny's oldest friend. How could she have gone to Fairy in the summer, when the whole world thought the Sorceress Royal dead? Remember they would have burnt the Academy down had she not stood before its doors and told those wicked men to go away. After all she has endured, surely you do not begrudge her a holiday! It is the least she deserves."

Mrs Stapleton agreed Henrietta deserved the world. "But this is not a holiday. She goes to teach English magic to the True Queens of Fairyland."

"But it is a holiday," said Charlotte. "For she is fond of the True Queen and has not seen her in a great while."

Henrietta said, blushing, "Hush, Charlotte!"

"What I do not understand," said Mrs Stapleton, "is why Mrs Wythe does not accompany you. You, who have done so much for her and her Academy! I wonder that she is happy to let the friend of her infancy undertake such a perilous journey alone."

"But I do not travel alone, Mamma. Mr Threlfall will escort me to the Fairy Court and entrust me to the True Queens," said Henrietta. "I could not be better-guarded if Prunella had been able to come herself."

As a matter of fact, the Sorceress Royal would have given much to go with Henrietta to Fairyland. Indeed she had declared her intention to do so the moment she had heard of the invitation.

"You would be most welcome, I am sure," said Henrietta, who was not at all sure. Though Muna had never complained of Prunella to her, she had a suspicion the True Queen was not over-fond of the Sorceress Royal. "But … " She hesitated.

"What?" said Prunella.

"But you don't mean to engage in any intriguing, do you?" said Henrietta.

Prunella opened her eyes very wide, her invariable habit when she was about to tell a lie. "Intriguing? I should not dream of it. When they have been so gracious as to invite us to their Court -- their seat of power -- the very heart of magic!"

"The invitation was addressed to _me_ ," said Henrietta, flushing. "Prunella, you are not to take advantage of my friend! I shall not allow it. If you cannot promise to refrain from politicking, I shall go alone."

"Why, Henny, how cross you are," said Prunella crossly. "As though I could take advantage of our hostesses, even if I would! They are Queens of Fairy and I am a mere mortal female. Besides, a little spying is no offence against hospitality. At the Fairy Court they will expect it. Think of what good we might do our countryfellows by a little application. Think of the Academy!"

"I do think of the Academy," said Henrietta. "It is all I think of. Am I not to be left anything for myself?"

Here Prunella started making pointed comments about ungrateful friends who enacted theatricals when their unreasonable demands were rejected. The conversation should rapidly have devolved into a heated quarrel if not for the intervention of her husband.

"You cannot leave England, Prunella; you know how your position has suffered from all that passed in the summer. If you go on a frolic to Fairy now, you can expect to return to a new Sorcerer Royal elect," said Mr Wythe. "Miss Stapleton is quite right. The goodwill her visit will occasion will do more for Britain's relations with Fairy than anything you are likely to find by skulking around the Court."

"I would not skulk," said Prunella, with dignity. "I would _prowl_."

"Besides," said Mr Wythe, "Miss Stapleton is entitled to some pleasure after the year she has had. Do not you think so?"

Prunella could not hold out against so direct an appeal to her heart. In a moment she had flung her arms around Henrietta and promised her she might go all alone, or with anyone she chose, borne on the finest cloud in Prunella's stable: "I have tamed a new one, the most charming, soft, pearly creature, glowing with all the colours of sunset and delightfully high-spirited."

The idea of riding a high-spirited cloud all the way to Fairy made Henrietta quail. She concealed this, thanking Prunella.

"But I have an escort in mind who will have no need of a cloud," she said.

* * *

Rollo had been happy to oblige when Henrietta asked him to fly her to the Fairy Court.

"If you had asked me to go there when the old Queen was on the throne, you might have whistled for me," he said candidly. "But now, it's a different case altogether. Not that I should wish to live there myself, mind, but it is a jolly sight pleasanter than it was. It will be good to stretch the old wings out, too. I have not done a long flight in a considerable time."

It transpired however that Rollo had not agreed merely to be obliging, nor for the exercise. Ensconced in a litter secured on his back, piled around with blankets and protective spells to shield her from the elements, Henrietta was so cosy that even the wonder of flying dragonback could not keep her awake. She had dozed off when Rollo's voice woke her.

"I beg your pardon?" shouted Henrietta. The wind whipped away her words.

Rollo murmured a spell. Henrietta did not hear the formula, but his next words were as clear as crystal, as if he spoke them directly into her ear: "I meant to ask -- get along with Poggs, do you? You rub along happily enough?"

"Why, yes," said Henrietta, nonplussed. "That is to say, I believe so. He is always very kind."

"You don't regret marrying him?"

"No indeed." Had some complaint from Damerell prompted this line of inquiry? Damerell seemed content, but then he had such excellent manners Henrietta would never know if she had annoyed him unless he wished her to know it. Theirs was not a love marriage, but they were by now good friends and she was perturbed at the thought he might be concealing a secret dissatisfaction. "Has Mr Damerell said ... "

"Only," said Rollo, "I was wondering when you might lay some eggs. You see, I shall have to look into Threlfall on the way back -- my Aunt Georgiana will expect it -- and people will ask. Dragons haven't the sense of delicacy the English do on these matters."

Warmth rushed into Henrietta's cheeks. It was unlikely she could arrange to slip off Rollo's back without occasioning a fuss, or she would have been sadly tempted. She hesitated, wondering what to say.

She was silent for too long. Rollo said, sounding anxious, "I have overstepped -- been offensive. I beg you will not feel obliged to make an answer. Perhaps you do not even wish to spawn. Not all females do. My Aunt Georgiana only laid eggs so she might eat them."

Wishing she had been spared this insight into draconic habits, Henrietta said, "No, no, you have not been offensive in the least. We are so connected that you ought to feel you may ask me anything. It is your forbearance that has enabled me to rescue my family from degradation!"

Henrietta's gratitude to Rollo for not minding that she had married his mate always embarrassed him. Not at all, he stammered. "Honoured, I'm sure! Only wish I had conceived of the notion myself. You know I have always wanted eggs and any Poggs sired would be as good as my own. But if you do not like the idea, then there is nothing more to be said." He said wistfully, "I suppose you do dislike the idea?"

"With Mr Damerell, I am afraid it is out of the question," said Henrietta. "Much as I esteem him, our connection is not of that nature."

"Should you like it to be?" said Rollo alarmingly. "He don't go in much for females, but I know he is uncommonly fond of you. I should be glad to put in a good word."

"Oh no, no!" said Henrietta. She ought to have undertaken the journey by foot. She might have been devoured by unfriendly spirits on the way, but at least she would have been spared this excruciating conversation. "You are most kind, but pray do not put yourself out."

"Why, it would be no trouble at all," said Rollo, adding with pride, "He has a real genius for the pursuit, you know. Beats anyone else I've ever had to do with hollow. It's extraordinary when you think how little practice he can have had. He is not even a hundred years old!"

"No, thank you," said Henrietta. She forgot constraint in her anxiety to ward off the hideous prospect Rollo had raised. "That can never, ever be. You see, my heart belongs to another."

"Oh," said Rollo, disconcerted.

He was not disconcerted for long, however. Rollo was not remarkable for acuity, but from time to time he was given to flashes of surprising insight. One must have visited him then, for after a moment he said, " _Oh!_ I see. Well, I hope you are prodigiously happy, I'm sure. Pleasant, obliging creature, Miss – that is to say, Queen Muna. I daresay you are very well-suited."

In truth Henrietta harboured her own doubts on the point. It had been more than a year since she had last seen Muna. Henrietta wrote her long, gossipy letters, but Muna was a poor correspondent -- she sent only the occasional token in return. 

One could not expect the sovereign of Fairy Within to have the leisure to write love notes, Henrietta told herself. It was merely that Muna was busy. Her silence was no guide to the measure of her affection. But it was poor fare for a loving heart.

Then Henrietta thought of the summer, when they had all thought Prunella lost. Henrietta had been obliged to write to put off the visit she had planned to Fairy. Days had passed without an answer -- days crowded with other cares, but among them lurked the fear that she had offended Muna.

Until the morning came when, heavy-hearted, Henrietta had stepped out of the house where she lived with Damerell and Rollo, and found a curious heart-shaped leaf on the doorstep. She had bent to pick it up, but when she touched the leaf, magic thrilled through her fingertips. Vines had sprung from the ground, growing with extraordinary rapidity, till heart-shaped leaves, starred with purplish-blue flowers, carpeted the steps.

The flowers spelt out a message.

_NEXT TIME, MY LOVE_

In a moment the words had vanished, but Henrietta had seen them. Remembering them now, she smiled. Courage returned to her, and faith.

"I believe we are," she said.

* * *

Did Henrietta but know it, she was not the only one being harassed on the subject of eggs. Muna, too, suffered -- though Sakti was beginning to regret having made a jest of the matter. When she had warned Muna to take care she did not find herself brooding over a clutch of eggs when her Englishwoman had departed, she had only meant to embarrass her sister. A real warning could have been conveyed without speech, for their two minds were now linked, their thoughts as clear to each other as when they had been the one soul.

But the polong had heard the warning and thought it an excellent notion. Having sprung from Mak Genggang's blood, she was not one to keep her opinions to herself.

"You shall want heirs and the girl has good mortal magic in her," she said. "To be sure, it will be awkward for the creatures to have an English sire -- for you would be well-advised to play the dam. The English must be made to understand they have no entitlement to your eggs, no right to declare themselves connected to the Palace of the Unseen by any meaningful bond."

Sakti objected; she did not think the awkwardness could be overcome. "Besides, why should Muna's hatchlings be our heirs? I could lay eggs."

"You had better not," said the polong. "No one hatched from eggs _you_ laid could have any sense."

To Muna she said, "If you will take my counsel, you will start now, for it is not often you shall have the opportunity to see the girl, and being mortal she will die in time. If you begin now you will have a goodly number to choose from when the time comes, for not all your hatchlings will make suitable heirs. When you have made your choice, you will wish to get rid of the rest. Eating them will be tidier than banishing them -- we know what trouble banishing surplus children can cause."

"I don't mean to lay eggs," said Muna. "But if I did, I certainly would not eat them!"

Her tone silenced Sakti and the polong, but not for long. They seemed to think it possible she might be swayed to one side or the other, and continued to pursue their arguments when the opportunity arose. As though, reflected Muna, she did not have enough to worry about!

It was not prudery that made her wish to avoid the subject. Saktimuna had been something of a rake in her day and Muna recollected her adventures in vivid detail. But who knew if Henrietta would have any interest in that sort of thing? They had shared kisses -- glorious kisses -- but that was no guarantee Henrietta would wish to do any more. Muna was no longer mortal, after all. There was her tail to think of. Henrietta might find it strange.

"I find many mortals delight in a tail," said Sakti.

But Henrietta was not like the mortals with whom Sakti consorted -- eccentric persons who wrote bad poetry and consumed enormous quantities of drugs. Henrietta was quite innocent of the pleasures of the flesh. If she even desired to be made acquainted with them -- _if_ \-- Muna would have to be her guide. Agreeable as this prospect was, its contemplation filled Muna with nearly as much trepidation as anticipation. For the things Saktimuna had done were not very much like the pursuit as humans engaged in it.

Waiting for Henrietta's arrival, she tried to put these matters out of her mind. She meant to enjoy the visit, and see that Henrietta enjoyed it, whatever they did -- or did not do.

To this end, she had invited an ice giant to bring winter to the Palace of the Unseen. Winter had not visited the Palace in some time -- Saktimuna had never liked its enervating cold, and their time in the tropics had made Muna and Sakti even poorer-suited to its rigours. But Muna was determined that Henrietta should not miss out on any part of the season that she liked. Her letters had spoken fondly of snowy Christmases, so snow they must have.

Muna had forgotten that the Stapletons' townhouse in London was rather better equipped for winter than the Palace of the Unseen now was. Since the True Queens had taken up residence in the Palace, it had grown around them, as the houses of spirits are wont to do. It now bore a striking resemblance to Mak Genggang's handsome residence in Janda Baik -- a wooden house constructed to make the most of every passing breeze.

Muna no longer felt the cold of a mortal winter, but the ice giant's gift was no mortal winter. She stood before the entrance to the Palace, shivering. The sky was white, the Palace gardens bare, for the trees and shrubs and flowers had all decamped for warmer climes. Fortunately they had been replaced by drifts of snow, sculpted into marvellous shapes by helpful winds, so the gardens looked as beautiful as ever, though with an icy, inhospitable beauty. Muna rather thought her ears might drop off.

Outraged by the cold, Sakti had threatened to hibernate throughout Henrietta's visit. But while Muna waited, Sakti joined her after all.

"It was good of you to come, adik," said Muna gratefully.

"Why did not you dress for this abominable weather?" said Sakti. She could hardly be seen amid her layers of shawls and furs. A monstrous hat had swallowed up half her head. It had amber eyes, which gazed at Muna with a jaundiced expression.

Muna peered at Sakti. She herself was attired in the batik sarong she always wore, knotted under her arms. "But those furs can make no difference to the cold, surely, unless they have very powerful magic? I did not think the ice giant's winter could be kept out with clothes alone. Are you warm?"

"Not in the least," said Sakti. "But at least I feel as though I ought to be.

"Do not mistake me," she added. "I did not come to be civil. I wish to see what presents the English witch will bring."

"I only hope she will bring herself," said Muna. She scanned the sky. There was no sign of Robert of Threlfall. What if Henrietta's father had forbidden her to come? Worse, what if she did not wish to come? It had been so long, and mortals' hearts were changeable. Who was to say she still felt as she did when Muna had last seen her?

But then Muna saw the golden dot in the white sky. She forgot the cold. Anxiety fell away, and joy came down to meet her.

Henrietta, descending from Rollo's back, saw a small gallant figure on the verandah of a rambling wooden house. Muna's shoulders were bare, covered only by her dark hair. Despite the extraordinary cold, sunshine and warmth seemed to breathe from her. Muna met her eyes and smiled.

* * *

There were so many greetings to be made, so many ceremonies to be endured, so many friends and acquaintances to be introduced, that it seemed an age before they were alone. When, finally, Muna had dismissed all her attendants, even the polong, and they stood in the room reserved for Henrietta, they scarcely knew what to say to each other, or what to do.

The long flight in brisk air and her excitement at being in Fairy had lent Henrietta colour. There was a delicate rosy tint to her skin. The room was illuminated by a golden glow from the walls; in the warm light, her hair looked like spun silk. She looked young and tender and surpassingly lovely, with the ephemeral beauty peculiar to mortals.

Muna wondered how _she_ looked to Henrietta -- whether Henrietta saw her friend Muna, or a fairy, too alien to be loved. _That tail …_ thought Muna. She ought to have altered her form. It would have been a simple magic. Most magics were simple to Muna, these days.

But she had forborne, because she had desired Henrietta to see her as her true self. Foolish, to place such a burden on a mortal. Of course, Henrietta had seen her as she was now once before; Muna had worn her current form to invite her to the Unseen Realm. But an old friend reappearing in one's own country is a different thing from a spirit seen in her own uncanny world. Henrietta knew everything of importance about Muna, but did _she_ know that?

"You will be tired from your journey," said Muna. "I should leave you to rest before dinner."

"Don't," said Henrietta at once. She took Muna's hand. Hers was warm and wonderfully real.

"Stay," she said, and kissed Muna.

It transpired that Henrietta did not, after all, require much guidance -- and if she was not in any other regard like the mortals Sakti knew, she had in common with them a ready appreciation of a tail.

Some time later, Muna remembered what she had intended to do the moment she saw Henrietta again.

"I had almost forgot," she exclaimed. "I have a gift for you."

She unfurled it and spread it across the bed. Henrietta's countenance was lit with delight.

"How very, very beautiful!"

"It is a batik, drawn by hand," said Muna. The fabric was covered with all manner of plants, beasts, birds and spirits, peeping around the swirls and dots of regular geometric patterns, all dyed in fantastic hues. The creatures seemed to move as the eye passed over them. "The tree spirits presented it to us. They wished to make you a gift, for they pride themselves on having hosted you when the former Queen held us captive.

"I did not know whether you would wish to remember that time," she added, with some hesitation. "But it is fine work."

"Oh, I have never seen finer in my life!" cried Henrietta. "You must bring me to the trees, so that I may thank them myself." A thought struck her. "Shall I wear it to see them? Would it please them?"

"Very much," said Muna, "but you had better not. The ice giant said it would be winter for at least a fortnight. I have a werebear's fur for you which will keep you warm, for it has a strong enchantment in it –- only you must not let Sakti coax you into giving it to her. Perhaps you could wear the batik next summer, when you come again."

"Next summer," echoed Henrietta. "Yes, certainly." A wondrous span of years unrolled before her, radiant summers followed by iridescent winters, filled with magic and learning and surprises and love.

"Have you an appetite for dinner?" said Muna. "Our cooks have dressed a joint after the English fashion, but I have also taken the liberty to prepare some dishes in the style we ate in Janda Baik. They are ate with one's hands, off banana leaves -- if the leaves are not wholly frozen. I remember your hospitality in England, you see, and have always meant to return it when I could."

"I am ravenous!" said Henrietta, and found it was true. "Let us go directly." She held out her hands and Muna took them.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to antediluvian for beta reading the story at short notice.


End file.
